Monday, June 18, 2007

Stealth - The Scorecard

Pretty much everything we watch on TV is now on hiatus, which explains how we ended up watching the movie "Stealth" on one of the many Encore Crap Movie channels we get. Here's my scorecard:

SGI/Visuals: Awesome. Fantastic landscapes, the aircraft were quite impressive and realistic (visually), and Jessica Biel truly put the A in Posterior. Although there were not enough cheesecake shots of Ms Biel to make the film worthwhile, although her obvious role in the film was to A) provide extra "must save the damsel" plot, and B) show off said posterior. Really. I can't imagine why else she was there. The same went for Jaime Foxx, who substituted the posterior factor with his sheer animal magnetism. Or something. His role was to fly into a mountain. V-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Because God knows this movie needed to move more slowly.

Oh, I should probably put in a spoiler alert or something. Here is is - the scorecard heads south from here.

Story: So-so. This is your standard cautionary tale about the dangers of technology progressing too quickly and how we really don't understand what will happen with an AI under unusual circumstances. Which, frankly, is a pretty good lesson along with human cloning and genetic engineering. Buying that cabin up in the mountains 50 miles from the nearest neighbor is looking like a better idea every few minutes. The rest of the plot? Scary plane AI learns to ignore orders from hotshot pilot, decides to shoot up the Russians, learns to trust the hero, and they bring the idiots who came up with this idea to justice despite...

Understanding of Basic Physics and Geography: Wow, I never knew that Thailand, Tajikistan, Siberia, North Korea, and Alaska were within a single fighter plane's range! Of course, it did require a top off at a floating gas station at 32,000 ft, but still. What a small world we live in. To help us understand where all of these interesting places were, we got a map showing us that yes indeed, they were only a few hundred scan lines distant. All I can guess is that the producer in charge of casting had a *lot* of Asian friends from various parts of Asia and wanted to fit them all in somehow. The United States (pop quiz - how many states are there, kids? No fair counting the stripes on the flag!) is truly living up to it's reputation as the dumbest developed country on the planet. At least they recognized that Kowloon is somewhere close to Thailand.

What That Piece Of Paper You Signed When You Enlisted Meant: Here's what it meant - you don't talk about top secret military projects in front of Jaime Foxx's latest conquest, even if she apparently doesn't speak English. Which they had to put a scene in to explain because they didn't want to reshoot the scene where they talk about the top secret military mission. While I've never been in the military (which is a good thing for the military), I have signed a piece of paper like that when I worked on the Stealth Bomber in the 80's, and let me tell you that they scare you badly enough so that you hope like hell you don't talk in your sleep. Watching that scene made the Boys shrivel up and hide in my pelvic cavity, no lie.

Ending: Can't help you here, buddy - I didn't make it that far. After the hero shot up an entire hanger of people "willing to obey orders" (also known as "evil") while standing without the slightest bit of cover right in the middle of them, followed by the remaining soldiers (who are, mind you, stationed at a super secret military base in Alaska) opening up a super secret room full of about 80 different types of guns (because one type would look boring) - well, let's just say that my willing suspension of disbelief blew all four tires simultaneously, and with Ms Biel unlikely to be in a bikini again until just before the closing credits, I chose the Greedy Realtor Channel instead. So if someone wants to tell me that whoever wrote and produced this mess was killed in the closing minutes when an overweight studio exec fell on them, by all means send me an e-mail. Otherwise, I can't be bothered to care.

Neither should you. Although Ms Biel does look good in that bikini. But not *that* good.